Northfield Illinois

June 22, 2017

Summertime means farmers' markets! There’s a real sense of community that surrounds a farmers' market offering local goods from local vendors. The markets offer fresh foods and give everyone a chance to interact with other members of their community. Here’s a list of ten of the local farmers' market in the North Shore area:

Northbrook

Happening every Wednesday from June 21 – October 11, 7AM to 1 PM at Cherry and Meadow in downtown Northbrook, the Northbrook Farmers Market supports local farmers. The market works to educate residents on healthy, local foods. Read on for more information: http://www.northbrookfarmersmarket.org/

Wilmette

Held in the village center every Saturday from late April to early November from 8AM to 1PM, the Wilmette French Market offers local foods and flowers from local and regional vendors. Read on for more information: http://www.wilmette.com/visitors/french-market/

Highland Park

The Ravinia Farmers' Market happens every Wednesday morning from June 7th through October 25th, rain or shine, from 7AM to 1PM on Dean Avenue at Jens Jensen Park. This summer marks the 37th year of this local farmers' market tradition. Read on for more information: http://www.raviniafarmersmarket.org/

For the 42nd year in a row, the Evanston Farmers' Market is in full swing. It takes place on Saturdays from May 6 – November 4, 7:30AM – 1PM at University Place and Oak Ave. Up to 58 vendors will be present, with the full list on the website. Read on for more information: https://www.cityofevanston.org/residents/farmers-market

Skokie

The Skokie Farmers' Market takes place every Sunday from June 11 through November 5, 7:30AM – 12:30PM at 5127 Oakton Street. The market hosts vendors from Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. Read on for more information: http://www.skokie.org/FarmersMarket.cfm

Saturday mornings June 17 – October 14, from 7AM – 12:30PM at the Metra Commuter Lot at the northwest corner of Deerfield Road and Robert York Ave., visit the Deerfield Farmers' Market. The market features farm-fresh produce and products from local businesses. Read on for more information:http://www.deerfield.il.us/301/Farmers-Market

Hopefully at least one of these farmers markets fits into your schedule. Let us know if you find a market we didn’t know about, and tell us which one is your favorite!

May 26, 2016

Budget can really be a four-letter word, especially when you’re looking to update you home. Spring refresh, summer upgrades—who can afford that on a budget? You can! At Modernize, we love finding less-expensive ways to improve your home’s value, so here are a few of our favorite tips.

Paint to Your Heart’s Content

Feeling a bit dreary in that back room lately? It may be time for a fresh coat of paint. It seems simple enough, but new paint creates a brighter atmosphere, cleaner lines, and can even evoke emotions like peace or joy. Freshly painted rooms show an obvious level of maintenance and upgrading, which makes the rest of your home shine.

If you’re selling your house, aim for neutral paint colors that won’t stand out too much. We love that hot pink wall, too, but your potential buyers may feel differently. A few gallons of paint could cost you less than a $100, which is a great price to pay for the upgraded value and aesthetic of your home.

Work Your Curb Appeal

When you’re refreshing your paint, make sure to paint the outside of your home, too. The exterior of your house will become damaged and weathered over time, so maintain it by scraping peeling paint and applying a fresh coat. Repair any damages to wood or gutters, then paint those spots, too.

Landscaping is another effective way to spruce up your curb appeal. Hiring a lawn service is a great way to go, but you can learn some gardening tips yourself and create plant beds to line your house or driveway. Use a mix of pebbles, gravel, decorative stones, and cement blocks to breathe life back into your yard.

Well-maintained hedges, bushes, and grass go a long way, so the next time you see some weeds poking up around your feet, stop to pull them!

Repair With Eco-Friendly Upgrades

If it’s time to replace the carpet, the air conditioner, or another major feature of your home, be smart about it. Replacing an old A/C unit or kitchen appliance is costly, so choose a greener option that will generate savings in the long run. You’ll face lower electricity bills, which will build up your wallet over time. If you’re selling your home, energy-efficient appliances and eco-friendly materials will boost your seling value. It pays to upgrade!

Important areas to focus on for design upgrades are kitchens and bathrooms. Major overhauls can be pricy, so incorporate some small upgrades like new fixtures, handles, cabinets, backsplashes, or hardware. These small changes are visually pleasing and can revitalize your home decor from another decade.

Whether you’re selling or just trying to upgrade your home, that expected bill can be daunting. Do what you can on your own, and remember, even small upgrades are still upgrades!

June 16, 2014

Summer is here, and so are the Farmers Markets! The north shore has no shortage of options. All with amazing fresh foods, and community flare. It gives people the opportunity for amazing fresh foods, and to buy local. So, make it a goal this summer to take a tour of the north shores amazing farmers markets and support your local communities. Here is info on some of the markets (send me info about any others to include here).

Evanston There are several Farmers' Markets in operation in Evanston in the spring, summer and fall. Click here to find out when and where to find them.

January 01, 2014

My family decided to skip going to a movie today, and it is still snowing outside (no point in shovelling yet) so I decided to get started analyzing the 2013 housing numbers for the North Shore.

On average, the number of homes sold in 2013 rose by 20% over 2012 on the North Shore (Deerfield, Evanston, Glencoe, Highland Park, Kenilworth, Lake Forest, Northbrook. Northfield, Skokie, Wilmette and Winnetka). Over 82% of these were “traditional” sales (not distressed properties), which is an improvement over 2012, where 75.5% were distressed properties. Median prices rose in every community, except for Kenilworth and Northbrook (I will be taking a look at average prices to see if there is an anomaly here).

Heading into 2014 additional good news is that the number of distressed properties (pre-foreclosure and bank owned) has declined in all communities, with about 1% of totally housing units in pre-foreclosure or already bank owned. Skokie continues to have the highest number of these distressed properties (392) and the highest percent of its total housing units (1.6%). Distressed properties in both Northbrook and Northfield is 1.2% of total housing units. All other communities are at or below 1%.

I am attaching charts that summarize sales and median prices for each community, 2013 versus 2012, single family homes and condos/townhomes. click here for charts

This is just my first look at the data...I'll be reviewing it more in depth over the next few days and provide additional insights and commentary.

Thank you for reading!!

If you’d like to understand how this information affects you and your home buying/selling decisions, contact me directly for a consultation.

October 10, 2013

In general this article provides some good advice. But it misses the mark on these three key points, especially for buyers on Chicago's North Shore:

GET PRE-QUALIFIED BEFORE YOU LOOK AT ANY HOMES. In the current market where homes are selling very quickly and often with multiple offers, it is critical for a buyer to get pre-qualified for a mortgage BEFORE their first visit to a property. This is not stressed enough in the article.

NARROW DOWN YOUR CHOICES FOR A LENDER BEFORE YOU LOOK AT ANY HOMES. With the fast pace and competitive nature of the current market, buyers must be able to close on time (as of this writing, it appears that the Federal Government shut down may cause some delays, but hopefully this is a temporary issue). Buyers will have an extremely limited window of opportunity to "shop" around for the best rate. While most lenders won't be able to quote you an exact rate until you have a sales contract in hand, you should be able to get a general idea based on your credit score, downpayment, and price range. I strongly suggest that you do your shopping up front, and narrow your choices down to 1 or 2 lenders BEFORE you start looking at properties. Then when you have a contract, you can quickly determine which lender can get the deal done with the best package for your needs.

MAKE SURE YOU DISCLOSE EVERYTHING ABOUT YOUR FINANCIAL SITUATION WHEN YOU GET PRE-APPROVED. If you forget to tell the lender that you have a rental property, or that your downpayment will be a gift from your uncle in Japan, or that your primary bank account is in Canada...this could cause the lender to give you incorrect information about they type of loan that is best for you, the associated costs, or even the timing. While this information might not seem important to you, it can cause delays and cause your deal to fall through. The sooner you share this information with your lender, the better.

Thank you for reading!!

If you’d like to understand how this information affects you and your home buying/selling decisions, contact me directly for a consultation.

January 20, 2013

The median price for a single family home on the North Shore decreased in 2012 by only 1.4% versus 2011. Most communities showed slight pricing growth and a few showed declines. Check out this chart (PDF) to see how each community performed. Or click on the chart below to see larger version.

Kenilworth, the smallest community reported here, showed a huge decline. Since this this is based on only 35 home sales it should not be taken as an indication that prices are dramatically declining there.

Lake Forest, which showed the largest percentage decline in median price after Kenilworth (-16.7%) does appear to be behind the other communities in recovering on both pricing and sales. Sales for Lake Forest increased over the prior year by 14.5%, while many of the other areas reported showed more robust sales numbers (see prior post).

Prices for condos/townhomes on the North Shore have not stabilized quite yet, though I expect that trend to turn around in the coming year. The median price for these "attached" properties decreased by 7.3% in 2012 versus 20111. These price declines fueled the strong sales increase of over 33% in 2012 that I reported previously.

Median prices in Evanston for attached properties, which represented almost 30% of the attached propertie sales, declined by over 13%. Click on chart for larger image or click here for PDF.

In my next post I wil be looking at sales of distressed properties in 2012 versus 2011 and inventory levels. Then, please stay tuned for my in-depth reviews of each north shore community.

Thank you for reading!!

If you’d like to understand how this information affects you and your home buying/selling decisions, contact me directly for a consultation.

January 08, 2013

From my last post you may recall that sales of single family homes on the North Shore increase by over 17% in 2012 versus 2011. Sales of attached properties (condos and townhomes) increased by over 33% during the same time period. Combined, sales of residential properties on the North Shore increased by 22.4%.

While Evanston had the highest number of "attached" sales overall with 416 units sold (Evanston also has the largest housing stock on the North Shore), the largest percentage increase was in Highland Park. The increase of over 88% in Highland Park for 2012, was followed by Northfield with almost 74% more attached properties sold in 2012 than in 2011. Northbrook and Skokie also posted strong increases in sales of attached properties. Click on the chart to see larger/readable version, or clidk on the link printable PDF with chart and table.
CHART AND GRAPH - PDF

The big question on everyone's mind is, "what is going on with prices?" I will review pricing in my next post. All I will say at this point is that except for a couple of communities, prices appear to have stabilized for single family homes. Attached properties are still showing across the board price declines versus 2011.

Thank you for reading!!

If you’d like to understand how this information affects you and your home buying/selling decisions, contact me directly for a consultation.

January 04, 2013

Home sales on Chicago’s North Shore increased in 2012 by 17.6% over 2011. Chart on the right shows the breakdown for each community (click on the chart to see larger image).

Northfield had the largest percentage increase of 81%! This was followed by Wilmette with an increase of 27%, and then Skokie and Evanston, both with increases over 20%. Highland Park and Northbrook also performed above average with over 18% increases in sales.

Sales of condos and townhomes increased by over 32% on the North Shore. The net increase in sales for all residential properties on the North Shore was 22.4%.

Over 75% of the sales were traditional sales, NOT short sales or foreclosures. All good news for the housing market!

More to come...stay tuned.

Thank you for reading! If you’d like to understand how this information affects you and your home buying/selling decisions, contact me directly for a consultation.

August 21, 2012

This is my 4th post in a series about real estate trends on Chicago's North Shore. Please see my last few posts for a summary of trends in:

Illinois

Chicago

The whole North Shore

Deerfield, Evanston, Glencoe, and Highland Park

I have been so busy selling homes that posting this analysis is a little late - sorry about that. The bottom line is that the real estate market has been incredibly busy, inventory levels are down, and we are headed towards a recovery.

Kenilworth

Kenilworth is a very small (and expensive) area of less than 900 homes. All of the statistics for Kenilworth are based on a much smaller number of homes than the other communities, so I will notmake direct comparisons. Sales have been fairly consistent in Kenilworth over the past 2 years. While this analysis does not focus on sales performance by price range (I do this type of analysis when discussing pricing with home sellers), it is safe to say that performance of this market suggeststhat recovery of luxury home sales is lagging behind less expensive properties.

The number of single family homes sold in Kenilworth decreased to 32 sales in thepast 12 months from 35 homes in the prior 12 months. Additionally there were 2 condos/townhomes old in the past 12 months, up from zero.

One of the Kenilworth sales was a short sale and one was a foreclosure.

At the end of June there was over 11 months of inventory for single family homesin Kenilworth. This is only slightly lower than it was in December 2011 (12.4 months)

There is one home in pre-foreclosure in Kenilworth and one that is bank-owned. This represents 0.2% of the total housing units (TNU) in Kenilworth. There were 7distressed properties in Kenilworth in January.

The median price decreased from $1.595 million to $1.305 million (-22.2%)

Lake Forest

Although the number of distressed properties in Lake Forest is relatively low, the inventory levels continue to be high, and prices appear to be flat or declining. As I said in my January report, I believe that the turnaround for Lake Forest is slightly behind Highland Park. I expect sales of singlefamily homes to stabilize or increase in Lake Forest through the end of the year.

Lake Forest sales increased by 11% during the 12 months ending in June 2012 compared to the prior 12 months. Single family home sales increased by 15% (similar to North Shore as a whole) while condo/townhome sales dropped by 3.8% (well below the rest of the North Shore).

Over 87.5% of the sales in 2011 were traditional sales (not foreclosures of short sales).

Inventory levels for Lake Forest in June were the highest on the North Shore with over 14months of inventory for single family homes and over 16 months for condos/townhomes. This is an improvement from the end of 2011 where single family home inventory was over 16 months, and 18 months for condo/townhomes.

Tax records show that there were 50 homes in pre-foreclosure and 17 bank-ownedproperties in Lake Forest at the end of June. This represents about 0.9% of total housing units (THU) in Lake Forest. This is a slight increase in distressed properties from January when there were 63 distressed properties.

The median price of a single family home decreased in Lake Forest by 1.4%%, while he condo/townhome median price dropped by more than 46%.

Northbrook

The overall sales increases in Northbrook have been very strong. However, we will not see pricing improvements until the more of the distressed properties are cleared out of the market and inventory levels decline more. Condo/townhome prices will take longer to stabilize than single family home prices.

The number of homes sold in Northbrook increased by 23.2% for the 12 months ending June 2012, compared to the prior 12 months. Similar to Deerfield and Highland Park, most of the increases in Northbrook were in the townhome/condo market where sales increased by over 40%. Single family home sales increased by 14.4% in the same time period. This continues the trend that we saw in at the end of 2011 with townhome/condo sales showing stronger increases than single family homes in Northbrook. The overall increase to 23.2% at the end of June is higher than the North Shore combined increase of 18.8%.

The percent of home sales that were distressed properties is about the same as it was at the end of the year, almost 23% for the 12 months ending in June. The mix of distressed properties shifted slightly with a slight increase in the percent that were bank owned (13.5% oftotal sales) versus short sales (9.3%).

Inventory for single family homes declined slightly compared to December 2011 from 9 months to 7.9 months. Condo/townhome inventory also declined from over 11 months to 8.8 months. This is headed in the right direction, but still a buyer’s market.

As of the end of June, Northbrook had 124 homes in pre-foreclosure and 72 bank-owned properties. This is represents a slight decrease in distressed properties from January. With distressed properties representing 1.6% of the total housing units (THU) in Northbrook this is similar to the North Shore as a whole, which had distressed properties at 1.4% of THU.

The median price for a single family home fell by 3.3% in Northbrook, while condos/townhomes saw a decline of 16.8%.

Next up: Skokie, Wilmette and Winnetka. If you are interested in a spreadsheet with all the numbers, please contact me and I will share. The spreadsheet also includes Northfield.

Thank you for reading! If you’d like to understand how this information affects you and your home buying/selling decisions, contact me directly for a consultation.

February 16, 2012

This is my 8th and final post in the series orbout real estate housing trends on Chicago's North Shore (until I repeat this exercise in 6 months!). I did leave out some communities that are also part of the North Shore this time around. If you are interested in this info for Northfield, Glenview, or another community on the Shore, let me know and I can pull the numbers for you. The Spring market has been SOOOO busy that I had to cut back on my research a little bit in order to continue to provide my clients with the top notch service they deserve.

I just pulled the data for January 2012...the number of homes that went under contract in January 2012 increased on the North Shore (same communities that I reported on in these recent posts) by over 44% versus 2011!!! So things are looking up.

Wilmette

The number of homes sold in Wilmette declined in 2011 versus 2010 by 1.8%.

Over 90% of the Wilmette home sales in 2011 were traditional sales. Over 5% were bank-owned properties and almost 4% were short sales.

Inventory for single family homes in Wilmette is just under 7 months, which is the closest to a balanced market (experts say that a “normal” or balanced market has 5 – 7 months of inventory) on the North Shore. The inventory for condos and townhomes is over 12 months in Wilmette.

There are 51 homes in pre-foreclosures right now in Wilmette and 22 bank-owned properties for a total of 72 distressed properties. This is a decline in distressed properties from last July when this number was 92. Distressed properties in Wilmette are 0.7% of the total housing units (THU) in Wilmette. Wilmette and Winnetka are tied with the lowest/best percentage of distressed properties as a percent of THU.

The median price of single family homes in Wilmette fell slightly by 1.5% versus 2010. Condo/townhome prices slipped by 8.8% - this is the only community that had a price decline of less than 10%.

The market for single family homes in Wilmette is strong. Sales and prices declined only slightly and the inventory level suggests that it is NOT a buyers’ market anymore - great news! The condo/townhome market is not doing as well, though it is much better than all of the other North Shore communities.

Winnetka

The number of homes sold during 2011 in Winnetka increased by 6.7% versus 2010. For single family homes the increase was 8.2%.

Almost 95% of the 2011 sales were traditional sales. The remainder of the sales was equally divided between short sales and bank-owned properties.

The home inventory in Winnetka is over 9 months for single family homes and almost 16 months for condos/townhomes.

There are 22 homes in pre-foreclosure in Winnetka, according to public records. And are 7 bank-owner properties. This is actually an INCREASE in distressed properties versus last July when there was a total of 20 distressed properties. Winnetka is tied with Wilmette; both communities have the lowest/best number of distressed properties as a percentage of total housing units (THU) of 0.7%.

The median price of a single family home in Winnetka fell by almost 9%. For townhomes and condos the median price fell by over 21%.

The Winnetka market is doing quite well. Sales increase versus last year, and there are very few distressed properties. However, the inventory levels suggest that the number of sellers still exceeds the number of buyers, so it still may be a buyers’ market. Median prices also fell by more than I would expect given the relatively low level of distressed properties. I expect to see the number of sales continue to increase and price stabilization over the next several months in this community.

Thank you for reading! If you’d like to understand how this information affects you and your home buying/selling decisions, contact me directly for a consultation.